UNITED STATES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 190, 10 May 1860, Page 3

UNITED STATES.

A Terrible Catastrophe.

A manufacturing place named Lawrence, on the Merrimac river in the state of Massachusetts, was not long ago the scene of a disaster which lias seldom, if ever, been paralleled. In it among others stood the Pemberton Mills, founded some seven years ago, giving employment to nearly 1000 operatives. The bu lding is said to have been originally of bad construction. As the weight of the machinery was added to that of the numerous workpeople it will not be thought surprising that the mill should have fallen.. Unhappily, the collapse of the structure occurred when the mill was working. The five stories of the building fell in, one after another, upon the heads of 600 or 700 workpeople, and the living an l the dead, with the fractured beams of the edifice and the heavy ironwork of the machinery were precipitated in one maes to the ground. How many founds

their deaths on the instant is unknown. As soon as the news of the disaster got abroad thousands of - people rushed to the rescue, and for some hours toiled painfully, and not without success, in extricating sufferers from the mass of ruin. But; a new and more shocking alarm was presently given. As the early evening of winter had closed in upon the scene, large bonfires were lit in a circuit round the spot to enable the work of humanity to be carried on through the night. Either from oue of these, or through some unexplained, though not supvising accident, fire was communicated to the mass, and rapidly caught hold of it. The rest we can hardly venture to describe Imprisoned in the ruins of the edifice, mangled by the fall, hut still living and conscious, hundreds of men and women were exposed to the most shocking of deaths. The flames them before the very eyes of their relatives and countrymen, and consumed them while their voices were still heard and recognised in unavailing shrieks for protection. As the telegraph flashed tlio tidings of the catastrophe to the adjacent States, the horror of the story must have been inconceivable. At iVew York the peopl e learnt the tale piece by piece, so that every successive incident bad time to sink into the mind.. First came the shock of the accident, than the details of the rescue; but before hope could be well formed it wa3 crushed by the fresh intelligence of the conflagration, the ascendancy of the flames, and all the realities of the heeaJomb. .